About Me

I am an Australian author/freelance writer living in Far North Queensland. I own two unruly dogs and recently moved the 130 year old Cairns Rugby Union Club to the family farm. I call this monster The RUC and figure I’ll probably spend the rest of my life trying to renovate it.

My favourite pastime is writing and I’ve won over a dozen national and international writing awards, the latest being shortlisted (top three) in the prestigious 2016 Ruth Rendell Short Story award which was judged by the wonderful and talented Lynda La Plante.

Yeah, that’s intense. My record low is a measly 11 degrees. Presently, it’s two weeks into Summer with the seasonal weather just beginning to show itself.

My goal for the blog was to write everyday for a year. My most intense and (in my opinion) pertinent posts have been written. My intent is to eventually turn this into a devotional. My anniversary is the seventeenth! I plan on posting once a week while I go back and edit my preceding posts with the devotional in mind.

I really appreciate your interest and look forward to talking more in the future! Blessings to you.

Wow. A crocodile farm and “subzero” weather. Australia sounds so neat. Do you have much of a fly problem in the summer? Thanks for finding my blog and subscribing. Can’t wait to see more of your posts. Regards.

Hi, Dianne! Thank you so much for liking my book review of Redwall and following my blog! I don’t have that much experience with book reviews yet, and I also wish to become a novelist like yourself. Best of luck to both of us in our future writing endeavors, whatever they may be!

Thank you! I wouldn’t say it was my first attempt at a review (I wrote one for First Along the River by Benjamin Kline previously), but now that I think about it, it’s definitely my first review on fiction I’ve posted. Glad you liked it 🙂

Hi Dianne! Thanks so much for the recent follow – I look forward to getting to know you better! (I actually went to a crocodile farm in Cairns on my honeymoon! Well, it was more of a tourist attraction so I’m not sure if ‘farm’ is the right word.)

Diane, A great pleasure to add my name to the many who, like me, have come to this page to thank you for following a blog, in this case Learning from Dogs. I keep using, perhaps overusing, the word ‘appreciation’ with regard to the many who chose to follow my scribblings. Perhaps a more gutsy and no less truthful way of describing my delight to all my readers and followers is that without you, and them, I would have stopped the blog ages ago. As it happens, tomorrow (JUly 15th) Learning from Dogs will have been running for three years!

Hi Paul. Congratulations on your three years of dedication and hard work on your blog! I love the picture of Pharaoh – I have a German Shepherd called Sabre who is eight years old. He has survived a lot. He’s been baited (poisoned) by some hideous stranger, had cancer and a chronic ear infection but he’s healthy now and still with me and is truly one of my best friends (as is my vet!)

Thank you. I’m relatively new at this and, like you I dismissed blogging for a long time. But I think I’m getting into it now and I’m thoroughly enjoying reading people’s blogs – it’s like picking up snapshots of lives I would never have known about if I hadn’t started this.
I’m looking forward to reading more of your reviews – and best of luck with your journalism!

Hello Dianne! Thank you so much for visting my blog and opting to follow me along my journey. I love meeting new friends and learning about them and their world. I hope we become great blogging friends. I look forward to it!~

Okay, your section is the “Blog Tag”. The rules are right beneath it. Pretty much all you need to do is paste the rules in your post and then answer the 11 questions. Then pick 11 others to tag (or however many you want to) and you can either have them answer those questions, or make up your own 11 questions for them to answer. Then comment on their blog somewhere that you’ve tagged them and where to find your post so they can find the rules and questions.
Does that make sense? Glad you’re excited! 😀 It was fun.

Hi Lynley, I used to knit when the children were younger, but haven’t for a long time (but wish I had the time to). My mother knits and crochets and I thought I may be able to pick up some lovely ideas and patterns from you. I’ve just followed you on ordinary goodness as well.
Thank you for dropping by my pages 🙂

Ah.. I just realized that my last post (as Quebekop) didn’t have the right link to my blog, so don’t approve the previous one (Thanks from Up Here for following from Down Under!) or this one and I’ll repost the original. Phew.

Hi! Wow, I think you were the first person to follow my blog! What an awesome feeling! Your dogs sound lovely – I’m a dog groomer by day and going to do the Caesar Milan training course in LA later in the year – very exciting, thought I’d share since you mention him. Have read a few of your posts, look forward to reading more! 😀

Glad to have you following my blog. I did not really think people would be all that interested in poetry, but since I started this class and posting these poems, I suddenly have gained a lot more followers. Thank you!!

Hi, I have nominated you for the seven things award – http://tryingtoescapethedarkness.wordpress.com/. You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, it is just a small token of my appreciation of making me welcoming to our community. Kat 🙂

My son named Sabre because he was right into swords at the time! 🙂 I used to have a cross from the SPCA – he was one of the best dogs I ever owned (but he was killed by a snake when he was about 7 years old and I was really sad for a long time!) 😦

Thank you so much, Sophie! This is very, very nice of you. I’ve got a couple I need to go through first so I won’t be responding straight away (have a look at my latest post:) ). I’m going over to your blog now to take a look!

I know you have received many awards and they are so deserved as it is always with pleasure that I look forward to your posts. So to show my appreciation I have sent you the “very inspiring blog award”

Love your writing! Looking back through the recent comments…looks like you’re receiving lots of awards. They’re nice, but time consuming. Anyway, thanks for stopping by my blog and congrats on your Book of the Year award!!

I just finished The Everything Theory. As a writer, I’m ashamed to admit I am at a loss for words. What a fantastic story!! I have never seen a picture of you, but now I can only imagine you with a gigantic cranium to store all of those ideas and plot lines. The time you spent researching that book must have been extensive. Wow…..that’s all I can come up with. That, and I’ll be heading to Amazon to buy the next book on the list!! You are amazing!!

It’s funny. I swear a blue streak in my everyday life (depending on how impassioned I am about the given topic, and of course never in a professional setting!) but I really go out of my way to abstain from using them in my writing. Every so often I might drop an “arse” or “shite” but really, I make a concerted effort to keep it clean. At first it was because I didn’t want to alienate anyone, and then it turned into a bit of a fun game (I wanted to see what other turns of phrase I could use in lieu of [insert swear here]). Now it’s pretty much second nature!

I like the game of finding other words to replace the swear ones. I think that would be great to add to the curriculum at schools! Could you imagine kids getting home and saying to their parents, “we learned a whole lot of new words today to replace swear words” – even though my kids are grown up now, I think that would have made me happy as a parent.

Looking forward to this weekend’s pictures of the ‘old barracks…’ Also wanted to mention I’m a fan of “Soul’s Child:” Aurora and Merv do it for me. One of the great quotes of the book is in the beginning line: “My father chiselled his way around integrity and common sense to find celebrity status of a sort.”

Glad you liked my interview with John Dolan — he’s a wonderful scoundrel (last known whereabouts was Amsterdam).

Hi. I’ve nominated you for a Liebster award. Please ignore this if it’s not your kind of thing. I’m new to this blogging and award thing so forgive me if I have breached some kind of blogging etiquette! If you want to read about it, please see my post here: http://ozonenut.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/the-liebster/
Thanks
Zoe

Hi Dianne, I have been following your blog for nearly a year now – keep the regular posts coming. I really appreciate your dedication to the craft! Thank you for sharing so freely! I have nominated you for the Blog of the Year 2012 Award. You can visit my blog (where I blogged about it today) if you choose to participate. If not, I understand – please know that you are appreciated! Anna http://annahergert.wordpress.com

Thanks for visiting my blog. I look forward to reading some of your posts and, in time, some of your novels. I am a Melburnian but lived in Cairns for a year, experiencing, ironically or fittingly, Cyclone Steve! All the best for your writing and generally. P.S. We also have two dogs: a spoodle named Lulu and a Jack Russell/Cairn Terrier X named Harry. They blame their ‘parents’ for any of their behavioural problems:)

Hi,
I have nominated you for the Very Inspiring Blogger award because you are very inspiring.
If you would like to participate, you are asked to:
 Display the award logo.
 Thank the person that nominated you and link back to them in your post.
 State 7 interesting things about yourself.
 Nominate 15 other bloggers for this award and link to them.
 Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.
S. Harry Zade, thenarrativeimperative.com

Hi Dianne, I wanted to respond to your story about the glasses, but maybe you are editing it or decided to delete it. As a near-sighted person who is now also far-sighted due to age and I have to wear glasses over my contacts to read — I want to beg you, please do not ever lend anyone glasses again. I’m not being a germ-aphobe, but it is unsanitary. Also eye strain is an awful thing. I had two eye doctors in a row give me the wrong prescription and I struggled almost a year with eye pain until I found an eye doctor who was smart enough to get it right. So, please, take care of your eyes! (Sorry to be sounding like a “mommy” but I don’t want someone else to go through what I did!)

Thanks Maryanne. I’m not sure what happened to my post. I published it and then it disappeared and so I just published it again.

You’re not sounding like a mommy! 😉 You’re right – but my eyes aren’t really that bad and it’s probably best I stay away from computers for a few days anyway to give them a rest. I’ve got prescription sunglasses that are fantastic for driving and I’m actually wearing those at the moment.

I included a croc in Let Sleeping Gods Lie and would like to use them in future stories. I did have an interesting incident with a very big croc that I will write about one day. My boss dropped his sunglasses in the croc enclosure and asked me to keep the big guy ‘busy’ while he got them back. I was never going to win that battle! 😉

I feel quite ashamed that you write all these lovely comments on my blog, Dianne, but I’ve never read your books. I just read the Profound Absurdities review and am determined to hunt out The Eleventh Question.

Morning Dianne. I wanted to give you the WordPress family award. It’s not an award that means a lot of work on your part, it’s just a way to say thanks for being a great support in my journey through blogging and through life. 🙂

Hey Dianne. You haven’t showed up in my Reader for a while, I hope everything is well with you. I miss your blog posts. I didn’t always comment but I always read. Can’t offer you sunshine as I’m in cold, grey London but I can offer a warm virtual hug and lots of love!

Like rilzy, just missing you, Dianne. Is everything good in your world? Are you writing? Haven’t seen a blog post lately… And, that’s perfectly okay, if so…just keep writing. Just haven’t seen you in my blogsphere for awhile and just a tad worried. Blessings during the holiday season and beyond. HAPPY HOLIDAYS.

Hi Diane – I am currently reading Wolf Pear – about 50% in and totally loving it. I do a series on my blog called location, location, location where I feature books that I have read and reviewed that are rich in setting and location details. Books that set a tone for a certain part of the world. I would love to include Wolf Pear in this series. If you agree, I would ask for a 500 word guest post in which you write on the topic of how a unique setting in your own life contributes to your writing. I put that up with promo and my review of Wolf Pear. Please email me at guenettefrancis@gmail.com in interested. Thanks. I can hardly wait to finish this great book 🙂

hey Dianne me again! How do I send you a private message/email? I would love it if you participated in a blog roll and don’t want to put all the details down on a “comment”. You can reach me onygmcadam@gmail.com

Thank you so much, Dannie. You’ve made my day/month/week year! I’m really glad you enjoyed the story. I’ve been a bit flat and not writing recently and in reading this I feel like I’ve been given the boost I need. Happy dancing now 😀